Moscow's "Holy Rus" show spotlights sacred Russia

MOSCOW (Reuters Life!) - Russia opened an unprecedented exhibit of religious art pulled from across the country and abroad at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery on Thursday, in a show of Kremlin support for an Orthodox Church growing more powerful since the fall of Communism.

The state-sponsored exhibit "Holy Rus" displays art works from the Old Eastern Slavonic state, which existed in the middle ages and united the lands of modern Belarus, Ukraine and the European part of Russia, with its capital in Kiev.

Russia inaugurated a new holiday last year to mark its adoption of Christianity in 988 by the leader of the Kievan Rus Prince Vladimir more than 1,000 years ago.

"It isn't the political state called Russia, whose history we are telling here, it's the historic period of 'Rus' we are showing," Orthodox church representative Father Nikolai Kim said.

The exhibit, which combines 420 masterpieces from 25 Russian museums and from the Louvre in Paris, opens with massive 600-kg, gold-leafed gates from a cathedral in Suzdal, a town 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Moscow with a historic center that dates back to medieval times.

Fragile 11th-century icons, gem-encrusted and metal-bound copies of the New Testament, priestly robes and rich iconostases are displayed behind glass in cross-shaped stands.

In a modern touch, centuries-old manuscripts can be browsed on flat-screen TVs stuck into crooks of the Orthodox exhibition, where the mood is set with religious hymns and chants.

The director of the Tretyakov Gallery said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had been behind the government's sponsorship of the costly and stunning exhibit.
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